This is a short guest post from ScotShot. In it, he theorizes about the true origins of the shortage of a consumer product with which we are all familiar.
It was a dark and stormy night on K street sometime in early January. Adam Longneck had been pestering Lady P about some virus that was going to turn Orange Man Bad into Orange Man Gone, but no-one was paying attention to him since he blew out the impeachment. Nonetheless, Lady P was desperate. So she had grudgingly agreed to let some failing interns do what they could to come up with ideas that would turn a pending infection from China into a national panic.
It was after bed-time and the chilled Ketel One had run out ages ago. The button downs were unfastened and there wasn’t a Windsor knot to be seen. Karen was poking the eyes of the bunny on her sweater with a ballpoint and Tyler was using lip-balm for the tenth time that hour he rubbed his chin and was temporarily distracted by the lack of growth since that morning. Not that it was worrying him.
… “OK, OK, these are great ideas, but Lady P needs something to get it going. We need, we need a trigger..” “What do we HAVE, people?”
There was silence, then a Karen-in-the-Korner raised her hand. Tyler sighs. “OK, what?” KK says, “Toilet paper.. “ A hush settles in the room and then high fives all round.. The Android gets tapped.. “mm-hmm.. yup.. it’s us.. you can tell her we got it … tell her to call the people at http://protestjobs.com/“
The following editorial was written by my friend “ScotShot”. He is a resident of New Jersey and a firearms trainer. ScotShot is a NRA Training Counselor, a USCCA instructor, and a CCW instructor. He is also the co-founder with Klint Macro of National Train-A-Teacher Day. He has a greater appreciation for the US Constitution and especially the Second Amendment than many. That is because he grew up in a country which has no written constitutionand no such protections.
More to the point of this editorial, “ScotShot” has a PhD in immunology from the University of Strathclyde and served for a few years as the Director of Research at a university center on biodefense.
It seems like an interminable time since the first recognized case of COVID-19 hit places in Europe (Northern Italy) and the USA. At the time of writing it’s been five months. There are many timelines out there that you can find, and the question of whether it actually came earlier is real. However, there’s a great interactive published by the New York Times that is well worth a look:
In these five months, the United States and other Western countries have been transformed by this event. Your present correspondent, who writes from the aggressively confinement-orientated New Jersey, has been struck by how much and for how long we have allowed this to modify our behavior and change our lives.
I’m not going to discuss the various successes and errors nor whether the Orange Man did well or poorly. I also am not going to discuss whether it was correct or wrong for Western governments to fall over themselves to follow theapocalyptic modeling of a certain Dr F from Imperial College, London after it became clear that it was only older people who were generally at significant risk. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We always, as they say, fight with the tools of the previous war, and this was fought with the tools built during the emergence of HIV. No foul, Drs F’n’B.
Let’s talk, Gentle Reader, about two Great Experiments.
EXPERIMENT ONE – “OK, we didn’t plan a biowarfare attack, but…”
Take another look at the NYT interactive linked above and remember that while this was taking place, China had essentially shut down, or was in the process of shutting down, internal travel. The Chinese Authorities very likely knew about how contagious this new virus was and the morbidity/mortality it carried. While we can’t know exactly what they were thinking, it’s interesting to speculate that some bright spark may have come up with the idea of letting a bunch of very likely infected people leave the epicenter of the outbreak to a whole bunch of countries just to see what would happen. That is, just to see how Europe, Australia, the USA would react at the levels of their governments and their citizens. I’d say that they are happy beyond their wildest dreams right now.
The whole Western economy disrupted, (multi?)-generational debt accrued, lockdown frustration amplifying civil unrest here in the USA (and whether the murder of Mr F was a deliberate trigger-act is for others to discuss). Oh, they learned a lot about us. Importantly, they learned that certain parts of our manufacturing capabilities were so dependent upon them that countries would order protective materials only to find that they were, for example, defective upon shipping or would buy back their own previously charitably-given supplies . They also learned that the political process here is so fractured that parties would use the pandemic to further their venal political ends. This brings us to…
EXPERIMENT TWO – “Wow, I never thought they’d do this…”
It is perhaps surprising (but only in retrospect) that only one or two countries, e.g., Sweden, didn’t follow the others in the mass-lemmingization of the West into the economic and social chaos of the pandemic lockdown. The UK, well England to be more precise, did make an attempt, but it was half-hearted at best and they basically caved at the first sign of trouble. Scotland, with its more socialist political environment, went for it whole-heartedly and are this week rejoicing that the affectionately-known “wee Nichola” has allowed them to once again go out and socialize but “at a distance.. over your garden fence, and not going into your neighbors’ homes..”. This is remarkably like it is in more blue-hued States here in the United States: NJ, NY, WA, OR, CA…. As we now begin to emerge armed with actual data about the effects of the pandemic and the entrepreneurial economy re-emerges in the red states, we see the true political agendas laid bare on the beach like little blue puddles as the tide of pandemic caution recedes.
Don’t wear a mask… everyone wear a mask… you don’t need a test… everyone needs to be tested… two weeks to flatten the curve… could be six months till we get a vaccine… back to normal…. emerge into the New Normal…
The “New Normal?” What is this New Normal that Democrat Governors are talking about? I’d say that they too have had a very successful experiment going in enhanced social control over their citizens. Well, I guess when you force small business owners to close down while letting corporate giants (naming no names) stay open, you are garroting your opposing political base. Who really cares whether people wear masks properly so long as they cover their faces somehow and you get the bonus of a bunch of Karens hounding those who do not, live-streamed on Facebook. You issued an Executive Order and people rushed to squeeze through the Overton Window just so that they could get out of the house.
What can we conclude…
So, what can we conclude, Gentle Reader, about the outcome of these two experiments? To date, they have been very successful and those who conducted them have learned a lot about their experimental subjects. Personally, I think it’s more important to think about what we, those very subjects, have learned about the experimenters and our fellow subjects.
As the lockdown is eased in red states and not blue, we see a picture emerging that is disturbingly similar to the cover of Kurt Schlichter’s book, “People’s Republic”. Blue State Governors working with the DNC to maintain control and build a New Normal up through the Election, and they do not care that they are now in plain sight. It’s probably wishful thinking to hope that there will be a move away from China as the source of inexpensive essentials and towards more domestic manufacturing, too. Too many of us are like the bunnies in Watership Down… “Look! Free Carrots!” and never mind where Fred went.
So I leave you with a question. Will those of us who believe in self-reliance and paying our own way simply become a thing of the past, turned to dust and blown away on the breeze, or we once again turn and say that we are ‘we’, “WE, the People”?
Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown rolled out their first round of endorsements today. In an “exclusive” to The Hill, they listed 58 incumbents and challengers in districts across the country. Some are names you’ve heard of before and some are newcomers with a boatload of money behind them. It is expected that Everytown will spend at least $60 million of Bloomberg’s money to get them elected to promote gun control.
Not surprisingly, there is only one Republican (in name only) on the list along with 57 Democrats.
The group’s senior political adviser, Charlie Kelly, said Everytown’s priority is to defend a number of incumbents facing contested races in an effort to defend the pro-gun control majority in the House.
“Time and again, this gun sense majority in the House has made it absolutely clear, and made gun safety a priority,” Kelly said. “It’s important that we keep the leadership of the chamber and that gun sense majority.”
They say they plan to plan to spend big bucks in Texas as well as at least $5 million in Arizona to help elect Mr. Gabby Giffords (Mark Kelly).
The full list is below:
The full list of Everytown’s House endorsements is Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.); Hiral Tipirneni, who is running in Arizona’s 6th District; Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.); Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.); Rep. TJ Cox (D-Calif.); Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.); Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.); Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.); Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.); (Jason) Crow (D-CO); Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.); (Debbie) Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL); (Lucy) McBath (D-GA); Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa); Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa); Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.); Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, who is running in Illinois’s 13th District; Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.); Christina Hale, who is running in Indiana’s 5th District; (Sharice) Davids (D-KS); Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.); House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.); Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.); Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.); Dan Feehan, who is running in Minnesota’s 1st District; Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.); Jill Schupp, who is running in Missouri’s 2nd District; Kara Eastman, who is running in Nebraska’s 2nd District; Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.); Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.); Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.); Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.); Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.); Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.); Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.); Jackie Gordon, who is running in New York’s 2nd District; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.); Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.); Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.); Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.); Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.); Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.); Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.); Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.); Eugene DePasquale, who is running in Pennsylvania’s 10th District; Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.); Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.); House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.); Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas); (Wendy) Davis (D-TX); Sri Kulkarni, who is running in Texas’s 22nd District; (Gina) Ortiz- Jones (D-TX); Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas); Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.); Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.); Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.); and Carolyn Long, who is running in Washington’s 3rd District.
We should be thanking Everytown for providing this list of anti-freedom, anti-gun, and anti-self defense candidates. If you ever needed to know just whom should never get your vote, this is it.
“Social Distancing” seems to be the word of the year along with “flatten the curve”. All of this is due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
You go into many stores and you see “X” on the floor indicating just how far apart you should be from the next person. X’s are fine but I stumbled across an easier explanation that will appeal to those in the gun culture.
Instead of trying to figure out if that is 6 feet or is it merely 5 1/2 feet, the picture below makes it simple. I found it on Reddit.
I’m sure if you wanted to be pedantic you could say that an AR15 with an A2 stock is going to be longer than the M4gery with a collapsible stock throwing off the suggested distance.
The FAMAS rifle is a bit strange looking. However, given it is French and they have their own aesthetic, one should not be surprised. It is still the standard issue rifle of the French Army.
Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons has an interesting video on the French Navy variant – the FAMAS G2. It is updated to be able to use 62-grain 5.56×45 NATO ammunition and accept standard NATO magazines. The French Navy has issued these to their Fusiliers Marins and Commandos Marine.
The Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms are holding three Zoom online sessions on grassroots activism during the pandemic. They will be led by Glen Caroline who is the SAF’s Director of External Affairs. Prior to joining SAF, Glen was the NRA’s Managing Director of Grassroots Affairs and Campaign Field Operations. Glen will be joined by SAF founder Alan Gottlieb.
The training is entitled, “Grassroots Activism in the COVID Environment”. We may be stuck or mostly stuck at home but that doesn’t mean we still can be active and defend the Second Amendment and our rights.
The sessions are being held at 7pm local time on successive nights depending upon your time zone. Pre-registration is required.
“We’re encouraging all Second Amendment activists to sign up, participate and learn new strategies to help us win in the months and years ahead, and make the Second Amendment great again,” Gottlieb said. “We look forward to greeting all of you.”
I registered for the Tuesday session last week. The cost is free and you are learning how to be more effective from a master. That is a double win in my opinion.
UPDATE: I participated in this last night and can highly recommend it. I have five pages of notes containing tons of ideas. If you weren’t on last night’s Zoom presentation, you have two more presentations.
If you are a Second Amendment supporter, you need to be on this Zoom presentation.
The US Marine Corps being Marines do things differently. This includes their burial details which differ from that of all the other armed services. For instance, they only use six casket bearers and not the usual eight that the other services use. As such, the Marines selected for this position tend to be, shall we say, beefy.
Before they are selected for the Body Bearers Section, Marines go through months of training at the Ceremonial Drill School. The average training time for a Marine before being selected as a Body Bearer is from six to 12 months. To be selected, the Marine must be a corporal or lower in rank and pass exacting strength standards.
Some things will remain as they always have. The Tomb Guards from the Third Infantry Regiment will still guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The difference this year is that they will do it without spectators.
Perhaps this is how it should be. The solemnity of their job as sentinels for the fallen is not to impress the tourists but to honor those who died for this country who are known only to God.
It is hard to believe it has been 10 years since I first wrote this. I will admit to editing it a few years later to satisfy the company for whom I labor and whose name I’m not allowed to say nor even to mention the industry.
Oh, well. I’m still here and I still work for the unnamed company in the unmentioned industry.
by 
